Can we be? But this is what
Central Texas should feel
like during the winter.
Maybe a light jacket and enjoy
the outdoors, but the weather
doesn't always do what it should
like from right here. February
2021, the temperature dropped to
single digits. Just ice homes here in
Pflugerville and throughout the state.
Lost power during the winter storm.
As much as we knew to get ready for,
we got ready for wrapping pipes trying to.
Bleed faucets stuff like that stuff.
Joe Galvan and his family knew well.
They had extra training,
but in Iraq you do a
little bit everything, but
even here, training goes so
far was really terrifying.
The house hit 40 degrees on day one.
On Day 2, the family went to a
friend's home, a home without water
being without water was safer
for Joe than being without power
because I had insulin that
I had to try to transport.
Insulin requires refrigeration.
A Texas Department of State Health
Services report shows 246 people.
Died due to the storm 25 people because
their medical equipment did not have power.
161 mothers, fathers, children,
grandparents froze to death.
The power was purposefully cut.
Too much demand and not enough power
from the plants to put on the grid.
Feels like we're just
waiting for the next one.
Horrifying the thing.
How many more people are going
to die because of inaction?
Lawmakers had the chance to fix the
power grid more than a decade ago.
A deadly storm hit in February
2011 left millions without power.
Of days. This battle report
recommended weatherization standards.
Lawmakers didn't listen no enforcement,
weak oversight.
This time, the storm hit as the
87th legislative session began.
Poor communication.
Quickly blame went all around,
and a lack of coordination
natural gas companies said power
outages drop production power,
producers said natural gas
didn't deliver the needed supply.
They're both right. The system.
We have to be without power
for such a extended period.
Of time is unacceptable.
The Texas Railroad Commission
regulates natural gas producers,
pipelines and processors.
The Public Utility Commission regulates
power plants, transmission lines,
local distributors and retailers.
They're supposed to work hand in hand.
Earth.
An apology from the Public
Utility Commission.
The fact that you're hesitating,
lawmakers pressed PUC for answers.
Texans suffered through this event.
Bill Magness was president for the Electric
Reliability Council of Texas at the time,
or COT? It's unacceptable.
It was his job to manage the grid.
He told lawmakers Texas was four minutes 37
seconds away from catastrophic blackout,
meaning no power anywhere for weeks.
Skyrocketing at the same time that
supply was going down the hill.
First gas, wellheads Bros,
then clouds and snow crippled
solar wind turbines froze.
And when power plants went down,
the natural gas side took
another crippling blow.
Same 2011 problems left unfixed for a decade
ago. A few photos. Of the
north distribution center.
Daniella Silva volunteers with
Community Resilience Trust CRT,
so this was food hot food
that we were giving out that
during the storm they found hotels for
the homeless and offered to help anyone
in Austin, anyone they could reach.
There had been a Wellness check done.
And that an elderly couple
had passed away in their home.
You're trying all of this work to
help people to literally save people.
It feels like you didn't do enough
that you didn't move fast enough.
It's like. It was just it was a
moment of desperation like we failed.
We failed.
It was a downward spiral where
gas fire caused a power failure,
caused a bigger gas failure,
caused a bigger power failure.
Michael Webber is a professor
in energy resources at the
University of Texas at Austin, so
if you don't have that first gas failure,
you can keep the gas flowing more readily.
Report showed the storm
cost Texans $130 billion,
but those who sold natural gas
made billions energy transfer alone
made $2.4 billion off the storm,
federal reports show.
Gas sellers marked up the
price of its raw fuel.
By 500 to 4000% no price cap on gas,
one of the most energy abundant
spots in the world had an energy
shortage and one of the richest
places in the world now is hit with a
huge bill that even we can't afford
power, unlike natural gas, has a cost cap.
But because of the high gas price,
Irkut allowed that power to sell
at the Max $9000 per MW hour,
it was an incentive to get power on the grid.
When the blackouts stopped.
Erkut still allowed that Max charge
to stay for an extra day and a half.
$16 billion on the backs of
anyone who pays an electric bill.
We gotta change the way we look
and we think about these things
Craig Naser with the Sierra Club.
Lonestar chapter wanted lawmakers
to prioritize energy efficiency,
keep costs low.
The extremes both ways
are going to get wider, so
even though as the temperature gets hotter,
cold spells are going to get colder
because the extremes are getting.
Why did the legislature didn't cover energy
efficiency other than requiring cities to
use natural gas in all lawmakers passed
two dozen laws aim to fix power problems.
They learned summercat board
leaders didn't even live in Texas.
So now a law requires everyone on the board
to be a Texas resident indebted utility.
Companies can get a state backed long
term loan instead of sending the bill
straight to electricity customers.
Now everyone pays over decades Senate Bill 3,
but most of the weight on PUC's shoulders.
The Commissioners, all new,
had to write,
whether meeting of the Public Utility
Commission of Texas will come to
order to set penalties for their
side of power operations.
I'm into more reforms in a shorter amount
of time than any other grid in the US.
We pressed PUC chairman Peter
Lake about the Commission's work,
the market reliability piece is
being implemented in overtime
over the next several years.
Most importantly,
the operational reliability
is in place now.
Here's what that means to you, your bill,
and the chance of keeping power.
For now, these 2011 federal weatherizing
recommendations are a requirement.
Anyone under PUC jurisdiction had to submit.
A sworn affidavit, they would do the work.
Eight companies didn't submit their fines,
total seven and a half $1,000,000 inspectors
had checked 324 facilities in December.
What's being done to protect excellent lives?
Part of the reason the grid failed
was because the electricity
market runs on supply and demand
companies can charge more when the
supply is low. PUC changed that
that's building in a reliability
requirement for retailers to have on
demand electricity for the first time ever.
So the the the retail companies
that send you a bill for electricity
each month will be for the first
time ever responsible for ensuring
that that is on demand. Electricity
instead of paying the market
rate when supply is low,
they've never had that responsibility before.
The Max rate we paid on the
open market during a crisis.
Was $9000 per MW hour.
PUC lowered that cap to $5000 but they
don't know the long run financial impact.
Instead of paying top dollar
once supply drops too low.
Power companies now get paid in
increments as the supply starts to drop.
Lake says it leads to more reliability.
Stay as far away from crisis as possible
so that's more generations. Sooner
lawmakers let natural gas
companies get away from having
to weatherize this winter even
though natural gas companies.
Had issues before the storm began.
Nearly half of the state's
power relies on natural gas.
Not all these facilities are the same.
Commissioner Jim Wright is one of
three commissioners at the Texas
Railroad Commission, one of three who
makes rules to regulate natural gas.
The trio didn't create weatherization rules,
and won't until the power grid is mapped,
only critical areas for natural
gas will be required to weatherize.
Not everyone.
Not like punks side of electricity.
We asked right about it.
Why couldn't you just say this is 1 standard?
Everybody has to do it whether
you're critical or not.
Again, there there's already
people up in North Texas that have.
Authorization that they're they
do just because they they every
year experience more cold weather
than people in South Texas.
So if I say hey, you got it,
you got to do this. You know,
this is the definition of weatherization.
It's going to be different, I think.
Geographically for Texas when we when
we go to the fine and adopt those,
and I think that's why I'm
mapping is so critical in that
I said everyone they inspected had
voluntarily prepped for winter.
Their inspections covered 3/4 of
all gas storage sites plus I'm
processing plants and gas pipelines
even with the best
standards in place, there's
going to be outages.
Todd Staples with the Texas oil
and Gas Association lobbies
for the oil and gas industry.
Yeah, I think there's a really
big misconception about
the way oil and gas operators
prepare for the winter.
He said most gas wells are unmanned
and can take hours to reach, but that's
not the only distance problem. If you
want access to natural gas,
you need to look at storage,
specifically storage.
He said closer to populated areas,
storage wasn't an issue
during the February storm.
Pipelines transport gas
from too far away, he said.
The pipeline system here in
Texas has to stay pressurized.
Gas loses pressure over distance,
so companies use compressors along the route.
During the storm, pressure
dropped usually either an unmanned
wellhead froze or a compressors.
Electricity got cut when
the electricity was cut off in
a lot of those areas we didn't
have the ability to keep that
pressure in the system. If the gas
system had not fallen, we would
have had some blackouts, but not as
many and not as bad. Not as long,
Michael Webber is a professor
in energy resources at the
University of Texas at Austin.
We are putting all the scrutiny
and pressure on the power
system to winterize a power
plant to do inspections or new
regulations or new penalties.
That kind of thing.
And that's reasonable,
but we're not putting the same
pressure on the gas system.
Joe wrote to Lake and the other
PUC commissioners told his story.
So all I can do is just be loud and annoying.
Do you think they heard you
no. I, I mean, I guess
you're here. Yeah, I didn't
think that would happen.
We will continue to listen.
We asked Joe if he had any
question for the PUC chairman,
you could find that question
and the response online with
this story at kvue.com with the
defenders I'm Erica Proffer.